Jeroen Pater

Jeroen Pater is a Dutch stand-up comedian originally from Groningen and now based in Utrecht. One of the first-generation Dutch stand-up performers, he has been active on the national circuit for more than two decades, focusing on alternative, club-style stand-up rather than mainstream cabaret theaters. He is best known as the founder and artistic director of Comedyhuis, a leading Utrecht comedy club.

Pater discovered stand-up through the Groningen Student Cabaret Festival while studying psychology, performing there the year after watching it. He was a member of the early Dutch stand-up collective Comedy Explosion and founded the Cynic Dick Clinic, where he developed experimental formats such as comedy-on-drugs, porn-comedy, and fast-comedy, an improv-driven structure. In 2009 he founded Comedyhuis, the Utrecht comedy club that now hosts over two dozen affiliated comedians and runs weekly programs. Since 2013 he has also served as artistic director of the Utrecht International Comedy Festival, the successor to the Hecklers Comedy Festival. His own sets favor dark, self-deprecating, and structurally inventive comedy: he is a regular MC at De Comedy Club tours and a recurring performer at Comedy Cafe Amsterdam and Toomler.

Jeroen Pater performs regularly at Comedyhuis in Utrecht and tours theaters with De Comedy Club programs, which feature rotating Dutch stand-ups under his MC role. He also performs at Comedy Cafe Amsterdam and curates the annual Utrecht International Comedy Festival, where he often takes the stage himself. Tour dates are listed on jeroenpater.nl.